


Cream, Salt, Wine, Crystal

by Chaifootsteps



Category: The Dark Crystal (1982), The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien food porn, Animal Death, M/M, Offscreen orgies, Talk of canoodling, The Skeksis are predators after all., Young Love, young skeksis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24248803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaifootsteps/pseuds/Chaifootsteps
Summary: It's the start of the Age of Division. Gelfling are contented and undrained. And a young skekEkt and skekAyuk court one another through a series of delicious moments.
Relationships: skekAyuk/skekEkt (Dark Crystal)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 23





	Cream, Salt, Wine, Crystal

_It was Aughra who fed them their first meal. That much, skekAyuk remembers._

_Before any of them knew what they were – knew what anything was – but after the Gelfling had fled, after the urRu had followed, after skekYi and skekHak and their counterparts had been reduced to nothing more than a memory none of them would ever be able to shake, it was Aughra who had hobbled the corridors the UrSkeks would never use again, down to the stores of food meant for native guests, all the while followed by 16 untrusting faces creeping along at a cautious distance. It was Aughra who had grabbed whatever she could carry and deposited indiscriminately it on the floor._

“ _There you go,” she had told them as they circled, sniffing, always sniffing. “Eat. Eat, you know what that means? Put it in your silly beaks and chew it.”_

_They hadn't been hungry, or even had a concept of hunger, but for skekAyuk, it had been the first thing to make any sort of sense; taste, swallow, pleasant, unpleasant. It had been enough, as the others began to grow bold enough to venture out from skekSo's under protective eye, to send him sniffing through the castle halls, searching for more._

_He found them on the table of a side room, still fresh, perhaps meant to slake the sweet tooth of one of the UrSkeks' native guests; warm and brown and slightly spicy, studded with bits of something candied and golden. SkekAyuk had sat chewing carefully, marveling at the way they lit a soft fire under his entire mouth._

_He had eaten just over half of them when someone crossed the door, and skekAyuk had known him by scent, the redness of his feathers and the pale blue of his skin. SkekEkt, who had started them all screaming at the division, now sniffing the air with curiosity in his eyes._

_SkekAyuk had gathered his find close, like his very life had depended on it, hissing a warning. SkekEkt opened his beak, hissing back – neither of them knowing for sure how to escalate things, skekHak and skekYi's deaths their only frame of reference for how violence ended._

_SkekAyuk had lurched, broad limbs smacking down. SkekEkt had stopped hissing, skittering back as though he'd been cut._

_And skekAyuk, for a moment, had simply watched him._

_Trine later, he would have no answer on what was going through his mind that day. The sheer defeat in the other Skeksis' eyes, maybe, the hurt of being denied something when they were all they had in the world. The budding desire to feed everyone around him. Maybe just the fact that it was skekEkt...he'd certainly like to think some part of him knew, even back then._

_Whatever the reason, whatever the driving force, skekAyuk had held out three of his treasures...and skekEkt had slunk in, not so new to existence that he was naive to the possibility of a trap, and taken them. Upon his first bite, surprise, followed by a look of slow, dawning wonder._

_SkekAyuk never forgot the way his eyes shone._

***

He'd never say as much, but skekAyuk holds one of the most important jobs in the castle. After all, the world of the Skeksis, when it isn't revolving around sex, revolves around food.

The UrSkeks hadn't been terribly invested in either. Energy-based beings who subsisted on the light of the Crystal and reproduced asexually, it's not that they didn't enjoy topping up their energy reserves...not that they had been prudish, either. It's just that there had been protocols surrounding the absorption of energy, and very specific rules about who it was acceptable to couple with, and how, and where and when and how often and how many coronal bands it was acceptable to cross to achieve transcendence and really, by the time it was all sorted out, you were better off just staying home with your transgenetic corporeal modulator and a good tome for after.

But all of those compunctions are gone now. The Skeksis watched them go trundling out the door, long faces held low. He has no idea whether the urRu ever decided to live a little, enjoy the delights of being corporeal, eat more fat from the Zel beast's tail, but the Skeksis bask in the heady liberation of their new identities, new perspectives, new eternities that stretch out endlessly before them. When they eat, they eat loudly and messily and in vast quantities.

And when it comes to exercising it off, of course they've got that angle covered as well.

They couple loudly and often, pairing off (or tripling off, or quadrupling off) at just about any interval they please, and there isn't a feast or party that doesn't at some point involve everyone writhing together on the floor as the music swells appropriately. Even functions with the Gelfling are known to have a secret side affair taking place behind locked doors, hidden and scandalous and all the more tantalizing for it.

One would think a Skeksis as sensuous and self-indulgent as the Ornamentalist would never miss a single gathering.

SkekEkt is...a mystery, one might say. He's no skekMal, who has been known to opt out completely on the grounds that he has more important things to do and probably does. He's certainly no skekUng, who has never once put in an appearance when the music turns sultry. Rather, skekEkt has always been content to set up a comfortable sea of cushions at whatever viewing angle he decides he'll enjoy most and lounge about, leisurely pleasuring himself, but never reaching climax. He insists he's a connoisseur, a spectator, but the general consensus is that he enjoys the idea that there's candy nobody can have and he's it.

He'll join in whenever he tires of it, they say.

SkekAyuk has never gotten involved either, and it's not for lack of gentle cajoling. With his sculpted shoulders and soft waist, he's routinely called upon to join the party. But Skeksis orgies run on their stomachs and _someone's_ got to make sure the skewered antbirds are moist, that the Lamu knuckles are properly seasoned, that there's plenty of strong drink to go around and that it's _mixed correctly_ , because nothing's worse than reaching over between partners and expecting thirst quenching tartness and getting a mouth full of seeds and pulp.

And that's the only reason – the _only_ reason – you won't find him sandwiched between the Satirist and the Collector. Why he consistently refuses skekSil's tongue, or skekZok's fingers, or that invention skekTek came up with that skekAyuk thought looked more painful than anything, but everyone else made such frequent use of it that it burst into purple smoke and had to be scrapped.

Really. Truthfully.

It has absolutely nothing to do with him not wanting to be there the day skekEkt finally joins the fray.

***

It's not his fault, you know.

He can hardly be blamed if skekEkt has the brightest eyes, the sharpest talons, that his particular hue of blue skin is a shade for shade match with the sky. It's not _his_ fault if he turns to liquid whenever the Ornamentalist takes up his fans and dances, and if the way his tail glides around his body has been known to make the odd appearance in his dreams.

If it were looks alone, that would be one thing, and an easy one. Manageable. But it's everything _else_ about skekEkt that keeps him glancing back for more, and fills his head with things he's sure he'll never say. SkekEkt is a creator to his very core, a staunch perfectionist with a tendency to let his passions eat away at the soft parts of him. They're all sticklers for details when it comes to their respective arts, but no other Skeksis in the castle forgoes food in the name of getting a project exactly right. If they did, skekAyuk would be the first to know about it.

Even the things about him the others consider insufferable, skekAyuk can't help but adore. His histrionics. His loud, utterly unapologetic confidence. His preening and primping and pecking about for compliments, not because he needs them, but because he _should_ be complimented and if he's not, that's a fault in the universe that should be rectified.

As far as skekAyuk is concerned, skekEkt inherited everything about EktUtt that was ever interesting, looked at it the way he often looks at an unfurnished room, and said, in his way:

“Oh, I think we can do better than _this_.”

***

He's working the kitchen alone when skekEkt waltzes in, naked as the day they divided and going on half erect. SkekAyuk nearly cuts his own thumb off.

“Ornamentalist!” he says, and much to his relief, his voice neither cracks nor comes out too loudly. “Er, can I get you something?”

SkekEkt crosses all four sets of his talons thoughtfully, leaning on his counter; skekAyuk finds he has no desire to shoo him off it. “To be honest, I was wondering about the cheese you've set out.”

“Something wrong with it?”

“Oh no, not at all! It's absolutely _divine!_ That's just the thing, the greedy throng out there has been trying for a full on flower chain all night, and when that didn't work, they went and soothed themselves by devouring every last morsel. I was wondering if perhaps, just possibly, you had any more stashed away?”

“Oh, oh yes, of course! Always!” SkekAyuk retrieves the cream colored brick from the cupboard and cuts it into four fat slices, asks if skekEkt wants the pungent dritato relish on top and oh Thra, yes, please, he does. Passing the dish over, skekAyuk expects him to take his snack and swish on out of his kitchen and life, but skekEkt remains parked right where he is, nibbling reverently.

“That's simply _exquisite_. Is this bulgy beast cheese?”

“Close! Landstrider, actually,” answers skekAyuk, wiping the knife clean. “Hard to come by...neither the striders nor the Gelfling like to part with it. It kicks you right in the mouth when it's fresh, but turn it into firm cheese and that does magical things to it.”

“It certainly does,” fawns skekEkt, finishing his slice and starting on a second. This is the longest conversation they've ever held outside of measuring skekAyuk for robes, and the vegetables he was chopping retreat rapidly from the Gourmand's list of priorities.

“So...a cheese aficionado?”

“Ardently fond of food in general. But I've never met a cheese yet I didn't like.”

SkekAyuk's mind is racing ahead. The words are already there, in a way he's utterly certain they would not be if the topic were anything else. “I think...I've got something you need to try.”

He waves skekEkt on into the back larders, past the branching hall leading down into the wine cellars, then onwards into the cheese caves, smiling conspiratorially all the way. SkekEkt claps his talons, fanged beak one long grin, alight with pleasure at the idea of experiencing anything others aren't privy to.

They reach the honeycomb caverns, mostly consisting of fresh young cheeses. As skekAyuk explains, “The fine aged ones, we bring in from outside. Skeksis are bad at waiting on things, but I keep a few aside and do my best to forget about them.”

What they're seeking lies in an unhooped wooden basin, lightly covered with cloth, but deceptively heavy as it's lifted onto the stone countertop. SkekAyuk rolls up his sleeves, reaches into the brine, and withdraws about a pound of something round, soft, and emitting a gentle, bio-luminescent glow, as lovely as the Crystal itself. Carefully, mindfully, he sets about pulling off a portion with skekEkt hovering close to his side, warm and rapt. He brings down the box of thin biscuits, and spreads skekEkt a generous smear.

“Here. Taste that.”

And skekEkt does. His eyes drift closed, and the noise he makes renders skekAyuk's throat just a little too dry.

“ _Ohhhh..ohhh, dearest Thra..._ ”

“...You like?”

“ _Oh...oh, my..._ ”

SkekAyuk leaves him to it, because he's been there, he understands that kind of liminal space when it's just you and the cheese or the bread or the chocolate or the fat that's melting into the loin. Certainly not because he doesn't trust his own voice right now, not at all, and then skekEkt's tongue winds around his own claw and licks up the last little speck and alright, yes, he'll admit it, he's never trusted his own voice less.

“Why in the world isn't _this_ out on the buffet table?”

What's a table?

“Because _that,_ my dear Ornamentalist, is rare, fresh swothel cheese from the Crystal Sea. Solid on the outside, but the inside is pure cream. The Emperor's favorite, especially on nights like this. He'll hide out with skekMal, put him on a leash like a Fizzgig, then order up a tray of cheese and wine for afterwards.”

SkekEkt's eyes light up once again. Skeksis are natural gossipers, but if skekEkt could fill a small pool and dip his feet in it, skekAyuk's often suspected he would. “Wait, wait, just a minute, now. Just back right up. What's all this about Fizzgigs and skekMal?”

“Oh, yes! It's a game they do every now and then. He'll huff around acting like a beast and skekSo will rub his belly for a while, then order him to mount. They commit to it full stop.”

“...You're not serious.”

“Completely.”

“How do you know this?”

“Podlings. But you absolutely must keep it to yourself!”

SkekEkt squawks dramatically. “You ask so much of me! _SkekMal!_ How am I _not_ supposed to tell the world a thing like that?”

“If everyone knows, and everyone's talking about it in the open, it's not funny anymore. Just like skekZok's little pain affinity was funny once...now it's just a fact of life. And facts of life are dreadfully unfunny.”

“Fine, fine! _Fine._ I'll leave it to someone else to shout from the hilltops.” He makes a show of sulking about, one skekAyuk is pleased to watch. “At the very least...and this may be too much to ask, but tell me...SkekMal, is he..?”

SkekAyuk grins.

“Whatever skekSo wants him to be.”

SkekEkt closes his eyes, savoring it as viscerally as he savored the swothel cheese. “ _Marvelous._ ” He breaks from it, gives his claws a clap. “Alright, fair's fair. If you give me just one more taste of that delightful cheese, I'll tell you a nasty, nasty little story that you absolutely _must_ keep more of a secret than I did.”

“...Who's it about?”

“SkekSil.”

“Done.”

“Alright. Now, if my sources are telling the truth, _and they are..._ ”

Three hours later, they've migrated to skekAyuk's beloved library of spices, propped up on vegetable sacks piled high, a little giddy from breathing in the smell of Fade Petal and Worm Curry Leaf. He learns that skekEkt plays with the tip of his tail when he's in the middle of a story, and throws his head back when he _really_ laughs; that he hates cold soup, but never said anything because he likes the way skekAyuk always decorates them. Then, when their jaws are aching and it seems that at long last, there's nothing else to say...

“Listen, I have _the_ most interesting little bottle of cordial I've been sitting on. A gift from this old Gelfling, made a dress for her granddaughter's wedding, and I haven't had a single idea what to do with it. One of these evenings, you simply must come up to my room and give me your thoughts.”

“...Really?”

“Yes, yes, of course! Come up anytime you like!”

“There's nothing I'd enjoy more, but you need to give me a specific time or I promise you, I'll never come.”

“Oh, you're just as bad as skekTek! You introverts, I swear!”

But skekEkt does give him a time, three days later. SkekAyuk gets to bed just as the first brother is coming up, his head spinning.

He never does finish prepping those vegetables.

***

SkekAyuk sees little of skekEkt the next day, and the one after that. The Skeksis of the castle might spend their nights in wet, noisy revelry, but they spend their days immersed in the things that bring them joy -- pouring over books, workbenches, and star maps. He knows from the night before that SkekEkt is focused on a particularly ambitious project, sewing drapes for that eerie old dance hall they're hoping to fix up so that said hall can host diplomatic meets, and isn't surprised when he disappears off the map. Even his chair at the table is empty most of the time, the Podling staff bringing him meals and endless cups of tea.

The only reason he knows he hasn't been forgotten is that first breakfast. SkekSo and skekMal take turns struggling with their very apparent urges to yawn, and skekEkt catches his eye just once, visibly fighting the urge to laugh, eyes sparkling with mischief.

When the appointed time does come, skekAyuk still second guesses himself every step of the way. If skekEkt is truly this busy, he's not going to want to sink an evening into sipping cordial and bantering about nonsense. This was a bad idea. What could he possibly have been thinking?

He raises his hand and lowers it twice before mustering the nerve to knock. SkekEkt opens it, dressed in a silky robe that ties in an elaborate plume about his waist.

“ _There_ you are!” He takes skekAyuk by the talon, tugging him past the wall of perfume and the scent of freshly cut fabric. “You come right on in here this instant, I've been waiting with bated breath for you!”

SkekAyuk finds himself ushered into a voluminous chair at a small table, and as the Ornamentalist bustles around, averts his eyes long enough to take in the sight his chambers. It's about what he expected them to be, honestly, pastels and silks from floor to ceiling, and the opposite of the controlled chaos he knows skekEkt's workroom to be. He makes a mental note to clean the mountains of scrolls and piles of written recipes that litter his own room, on the once unthinkable but increasingly likely possibility that skekEkt ends up visiting it.

“Now, you'll forgive me if I can't identify what this concoction is actually made of,” skekEkt is saying, producing a dark bottle on a silver tray. “The Gelfing had a name for it, but I'm afraid it's slipped my mind entirely.”

“Kifkir?” skekAyuk guesses, noting the coloration.

“I thought that sends you to sleep.”

“Not if you soak it long enough. The Stonewood use it for pies, the Vaprans for wine.”

“Huh! Well, I suppose we'll see!”

SkekEkt's talons are delicate, never spilling a drop as they pour the impossibly tiny bottle into even smaller crystal cups. The drink is dark, almost black, streaked through with garnet in the soft pink lantern light and smelling like an orchard after a rain shower.

SkekAyuk drinks, expecting and finding sweetness, but wholly unprepared for the depth, the heat, the layers and layers of spice. He knows at once he's drinking something that must be good for him.

“What do you think?”

“I think we need to shake that old Gelfling grandmother of yours down for more of this.”

“Oh, good. I _was_ hoping you'd enjoy it.”

SkekAyuk resolves in advance not to bother telling the other Skeksis that he spent the evening “tasting cordial in the Ornamentalist's room.” They would never believe him when he swore it wasn't meant as a euphemism. He fails to identify the fruit, but pins down a very distinct note of Thress flower. When skekEkt asks him about possible pairings, they end up making a thoroughly impromptu run down to the kitchens to fetch a tin of poppynuts, a few slivers of needlenose cheese, a handful of river olives. Just as they're finishing the last dregs, it hits skekAyuk like a bolt of lightning.

“ _Touch-me-not!”_

SkekEkt blinks. “Come again?  
  


“The cordial! You've heard of touch-me-not flowers? Bleeding sores and all? Well, they grow black berries for a very brief window, and the berries are actually safe to touch! Also a Vapran delicacy.”

SkekEkt lapses into a delighted shriek.

“You wonder! You've spared me the horror and embarrassment of seeking out a Gelfling and asking them. But tell me, what other concerning things have the Vapra coerced into being edible?”

He soaks up skekAyuk's tales so eagerly that by the end of the night, skekAyuk has mustered the courage to say...

“This was delightful. The most fun I've had in ages.” Though his heart is in his throat, somehow, it's not difficult to push the words up past it. “Would you...perhaps like to meet again?”

SkekEkt pushes a lock of his hair back, smiling end to end.

“I'd love that.”

***

And sure enough, skekEkt pays another visit to his kitchens, this time as clothed as any of the Skeksis will concede to being when the denizens of Thra are about. And then another. SkekAyuk invites him up for a night spent talking on the balconies, overlooking distant seas and drinking wine. SkekAyuk offers to teach him to make cake in a stone tea mug and laughs when the result looks like someone attempted to drink a Podling. SkekEkt in turn tries to teach him to sew, and the key word is try.

“If it brings you any comfort, just remember that the Weaver's stupid little fingers have at least as many holes in them. I've had the joy of sharing in every one.”

It's a radiant time in his life, even as he tells himself not to presume too much, nor want too much. So SkekEkt enjoys his cooking. So skekEkt enjoys his company, laughs at his jokes, wraps his fingers when a sewing lesson bleeds them.

_'Of course he does. You're a Skeksis, you're fun. Your cooking is without equal. He's promised you nothing and owes you nothing.''_

He tells himself he's made a friend in the Ornamentalist, and that that's fine. And really, it _is_ fine. If the Ornamentalist is to be his friend, he's never had such a friend in his life.

_/Though you're certainly going to make a mess of it. You're going to make it awkward and then you'll have to spend all of eternity in this castle together, trying to pretend it didn't happen--')_

It's the philosophy he chooses to live by, and by daylight, it serves him well. And if by night, if sleep grows harder to come by or his dreams grow vivid; if skekEkt winds through his unconscious mind, soft and sweet smelling as he now has ample evidence to confirm he truly is...

SkekAyuk, for a time, almost considers doing the unthinkable and washing his own sheets.

***

The maudren crescent, the network of farming routes and irrigation veins that feeds every mouth on Thra, was established by the UrSkeks. An offering to the planet that housed them, “So that no mouth on Thra need ever hunger again.” On the day it turns 100 trine, the Skeksis celebrate it with the same gusto they do everything else.

After all, it is not the UrSkeks who have seen it to this milestone, and it is not the UrSkeks whom the Gelfling gather to joyfully hail.

“Not at all,” skekSo defers when the old Gelfling representative to the Spriton farmers kneels to kiss his talons. “This is _your_ victory, after all. Your nails blackened, your backs bent.”

For skekEkt, of course, it's an evening to show off the ceremonial robes he's fashioned just for the occasion, tailored to call to mind the rich colors of the harvest, and even moreso to show off the drapes he so laboriously crafted. Even skekAyuk, as intent as he is on making sure every tray remains filled and every cup overflowing, stops to admire the way the intricate black and gold stitching nestles seamlessly against blood red.

“Dousan cliffwalker hide,” skekEkt declares proudly. “The rarest textile I could find, and from little old cliffwalkers who died snug in their straw beds at a ripe old age, to boot. Aughra couldn't find a single thing to fault me on and believe you me, she tried.”

“You do work miracles,” says skekAyuk. “It's breathtaking. As are you, come to mention.”

SkekEkt chuckles and preens behind his ornamental fan, feathers fluffing outrageously, but skekAyuk doesn't read into it too deeply. The Ornamentalist has received no fewer than a dozen compliments this night alone on his flowing auburn robes and flawlessly coiffed hair, and he's responded in kind to every one. At least one of them came from skekGra the Path-Breaker, broad beak just a touch too close to skekEkt's ear, which was the point skekAyuk looked away.

SkekEkt pats him on the cheek. “Listen, don't _you_ work yourself to the bone tonight. I know how meticulous you are when it comes to meals, but they're _farmers_ , you don't need to bend over backwards to impress them. Promise me you won't.”

“I'll make every effort,” answers skekAyuk, and then returns to bending over backwards to impress the farmers.

(It's often worth it. They're as generous with their praise as they are with any of the other Skeksis, and he sincerely enjoys talking harvests and crops and old family recipes made less secret by the ample flow of drink.)

Everyone knows what's coming when the music starts to play fast, and no one could resist it even had they chosen to. It's skekSil's own composition, and the Cantor has never failed them yet. Even skekAyuk stops fussing over whether or not they'll run out of battered shore-reachers steeped in their own briny nectar in favor of joining the others on a floor that makes space for them...not because they're guardians of the Crystal, but because everyone on Thra knows what a sight it is to see the Skeksis dance.

Suddenly, skekEkt is taking him by the hands.

“Dance with me!”

“Me?”

“Of course, you! Me! You and I! Right now!”

He's danced with skekEkt before, purely in the sense that they've all danced with one another at some point – it's less a question of who to partner with than it is about finding a fellow Skeksis to match one bow for bow and leap for leap. But never has the Ornamentalist approached him outright, chosen him above all others. The swiftness and sureness of it all is stronger than the question of whether he'll make a fool of himself, if his thick frame will look like a hurled boulder next to skekEkt's graceful one, and suddenly it's so _easy_ to grin, to pull the Ornamentalist in, laughter mingling...

“Together it is!”

It's one they all know by heart, the Predawn Flourish – not the first song skekSil ever composed for the sole purpose of dancing, but the first one he claimed to be truly proud of – and like many songs originating in Skeksis halls, it begins on a note of restraint...with talons shuffling and scraping the pristine dance floor, tails darting sinuously around ankles, feathers rippling. The Podlings like to whisper behind their backs that it calls to mind fowl courting, but for the Skeksis, it's an opportunity to look at one another, to reflect on the magnificence of themselves.

_(And oh, how skekAyuk is looking, wouldn't dream of looking anywhere else...)_

Once they start leaping, there's nothing on Thra that can hold them down.

The music goes up, and just like that, the Skeksis go with it. SkekEkt jumps and skekAyuk follows him, would follow him anywhere, and if he looks like a hurled boulder he doesn't _feel_ like one, their young and strong bodies taking them high and letting them live as, just for a moment, the birds they so resemble. SkekEkt's ornamental fans flutter upon the air, and it's only on the second leap that skekAyuk remembers he holds a pair as well. Again and again they jump, fans making formless shapes, landing and winding around and around one another before vaulting as high as their muscles will take them.

SkekSil's song is wild, beautiful, hopeful. There are no hard and fast rules for this dance, nothing to keep skekAyuk from curling his short tail over skekEkt's long, elegant one as they weave...and when skekEkt runs his neck along the short length of skekAyuk's longer than necessary, nothing to prevent him from bobbing adoringly. SkekEkt pulls back flushing, smiling the softest brightest smile skekAyuk has ever seen grace the face of anyone, Skeksis or otherwise.

That's when skekAyuk knows for certain that he will never love anyone the way he loves skekEkt.

***

On a calm, warm day that promises to turn into a calm, warm night, he invites skekEkt for a stolen evening away from the others.

They steal up onto one of the rooftops where the UrSkeks planned to build something grand, another telescope maybe, but it doesn't matter, because they never did. They roast crawlies beneath the stars, and skekEkt picks at the fur and feathers on his as surreptitiously as he can manage.

“Oh, I know, it's disgraceful!” he says when skekAyuk catches him at it anyway. “Please don't think less of me.”

“If that's your taste, it's your taste. I just thought you liked roasted crawlie.”

“I _adore_ roasted crawlie! It's the burnt hair and feathers I can't stand.”

“Are you mad? That's the best part!”

“Ugh, ugh! It's terrible. Reminds me too much of our own. The smell I can stomach, but that awful aftertaste, and they get stuck in your teeth...just the worst!”

SkekAyuk pulls a crawlie from the writhing box and, as one does, dispatches it with a single talon just above the mouth. Before skekEkt's increasingly quizzical eyes, he slits the whole thing down the center with the same talon and peels it off like a jacket.

“How on Thra's name did you did that?”

“It's easy. All their organs are in the center, so it's just like peeling fruit. I can show you if you like.”

“Please do, if only because I can't imagine you'd enjoy being my personal crawlie skinner for the rest of eternity.”

“I would,” skekAyuk answers without thinking...then quickly sets about skewering the thing, the thing he'd so very much like to blame right now, so he doesn't have to see skekEkt suddenly become very interested in his hands. Never has he been more grateful for the savory-sweet, blistering, highly distracting smell of popping crawlie fat, especially one that's been fed on fruit, as these have. SkekEkt takes it piping hot between his hands and wails dramatically when he eats it too soon and burns his tongue, so skekAyuk assumes his fumble has been forgiven.

“Is it good?”

“It's bliss,” replies skekEkt, licking juice from his talons.

They lie about the assortment of blankets and cushions they've tugged up, finding shapes on the surface of the Three Sisters, and make up their own constellations since they know none of Thra's. They make jokes about the UrSkek's awful homeworld that segue into unkind comparisons to the urRu and laugh as loudly and freely as they like.

And then, suddenly, skekEkt leans in, and taps his beak against skekAyuk's.

It's over before skekAyuk can even wrap his head around the wonderful, glowing reality of it, and then skekEkt is pulling back with a look so vulnerable and self-conscious, skekAyuk knows the next words out of his beak need to be good--

“...Is that because I skinned crawlies for you?”

  
SkekEkt laughs, but it's short, soft, and slightly too high pitched.

“No. Just because you're you.”

SkekAyuk cradles his beautiful, astonishing face. He leans in and his own little beak has never seemed so inadequate.

SkekEkt must not mind too terrible, because they do it over and over again.

***

They keep it a secret in the beginning.

Not for any real reason, mind...skekAyuk very much doubts anyone cares what they do together, if indeed they haven't suspected already. But it's fun to keep things from the other Skeksis. It's nice to slip under their teasing and gossip while they're still able to do so.

Their courtship is innocent in the beginning. One day might find them idling by the garden, skekEkt attempting to weave flowers into skekAyuk's short mop of hair...the next, listening to the Podling band practice, snickering at their fumbles and rapidfire, foreign curses. One excursion in particular takes them to an old storage room with the the door locked behind them, but it's only so they can sip new cider and read in peace. They end up falling asleep together, and when they wake in darkness, no one seems to know they've been gone, let alone care why they're ruffled.

“Why do you like me, skekAyuk?”

He's sewing a tear on skekAyuk's sleeve when he asks, voice plain and light and without accusation. They're sitting around the ovens, smelling the warm bread. There's a sunshower lightly pelting the windows, and skekAyuk is rather at peace.

“How could I not?”

“Humor me.”

SkekAyuk thinks, not because he has to, but because there are so many things about skekEkt to like, and he wants to arrange them in a way that does them justice.

“Because you're talented...witty. You make me laugh like no one does. Beautiful, obviously...and you know what it means to love something you create. You feel so much about everything, and when you do, it reaches all the way up to your eyes...and it makes me happy just to be near you.”

SkekEkt, though he colors and holds his beak in his usual way, smiles what is for skekEkt a very soft smile indeed. He carries on quietly sewing past the point where skekAyuk expects an answer...but as he's snipping the thread, skekAyuk receives one.

“You're gentle,” he says. “You're brilliant. And you smell like pie. How could I ever hope to resist you?”

***

One morning, in the impromptu way it so often does, the decision is made to have a private, Skeksis-only evening gathering. And for the first time, skekAyuk's first thought is not what sort of filled pastry to serve.

He doesn't expect that skekEkt, so long content to lay about and display himself on the sidelines, will take a more active role tonight...but he _could._ They never discussed otherwise. Should they have? Have any of the other Skeksis ever done so?

The sensible thing, the logical part of him knows, would be to speak to skekEkt about this. What he does is put the Podlings in charge of snack duty, gather up a tin of his favorite stress-eating biscuits, and retire early.

(Against his better judgment, he steals a look into the lounge as he's slipping by. They're passing an enthusiastic skekOk around, and skekVar is roaring obnoxiously. No sign of skekEkt, no sign of skekEkt's lounging cushions.)

He's made a considerable dent in the biscuit tin when the knock comes at his door. It's skekEkt,

“Were you asleep?”

“Not at all,” skekAyuk replies, quickly wiping crumbs from his beak. “You're not down with the others?”

SkekEkt gives him a very odd look. “Why in the world would I be?”

“...No reason.”

“For that matter, why aren't _you_ down with the others?”

It's not said unkindly, but something in the tone makes skekAyuk feel rather exposed.

“I've no interest in the others. This evening or any other evening.”

Evidently, that's enough for skekEkt. “Well. I was just wondering, would you like to go for a walk?”

“Now? In the middle of the night?”

“Of course! It's the ideal time! Everyone else is busy dripping all over creation. We'll have the place to ourselves.”

“Sounds lovely.”

They commence their usual leisurely amble around the castle, from the Podling quarters to the lower walkway where pools of morning rainwater send them doubling back, all the way on up to their favorite balcony. All the while, he feels the persistent rapping of something on skekEkt's mind, like a creature in the walls, even as they talk of nothing of consequence. Even as skekEkt takes his hand, talons toying gently between talons.

He's never claimed to be the most astute Skeksis in the castle, but he's also no skekVar.

“SkekEkt? You do know that you can tell me anything, don't you?” The Ornamentalist regards him curiously, and for a moment, skekAyuk is back in that workshop being fitted for robes once again, so very afraid of speaking to him. “In fact, I'd rather you did. If I've done something to upset you--”

“What? Is that what you...oh no, of _course_ not!” He squeezes skekAyuk's hand, which is honestly more comforting than his assurances; skekEkt has always been a poor liar. “You could never...well, I suppose that's not true. The moment you upset me, I promise I'll let you know about it.”

“And you're _sure_ there's nothing bothering you just now?”

It may very well be that skekEkt sees the look in his eyes and reads it all too clear, because whatever he's about to say, he stops and reconsiders. “...I'd...expected fewer puddles tonight.”

“...Puddles?”

“Mm. The walkways are dripping, the sky's disgusting and starless. I'm sorry, the whole reason I dragged you out here is because it _looked_ like a perfect night from my window. I thought it would be...”

“Romantic?”

“...I might have said atmospheric. But I would have meant romantic.”

SkekAyuk, not for the first time, wishes he could peer into skekEkt's head. He suspects it's an interesting place in there. “SkekEkt, we could be stranded in the middle of the swamp of Sog, covered in sucking worms, and I'd consider it romantic. Anyplace is, so long as I'm with you.”

The night may be gray and starless, but not so much so that he misses it when the Ornamentalist's gorgeous eyes go honeyed. “The things you say...”

“I mean it.”

SkekEkt's chin finds the top of his head, and stays there, so he can feel him smile. “I know.”

The other Skeksis haven't finished up by the time they duck back inside, but it seems they've passed the point of the usual cursing and caterwauling. As the pair pass the lounge, they're just audible from within...quiet, hitched gasps, wavering sighs, and the gentle utterance of names.

They look at one another, then quickly away.

As he lies in sleepless contemplation, skekAyuk's not so blind as to think it was ever about puddles.

***

Six evenings later, and SkekAyuk is managing not to think of skekEkt – a rare event these days, he'll confess. Rather, he's thinking of the Vapra they're soon going to be hosting, and how the Vapra have a shameless adoration for delicate food with a painfully short shelf life, and are they even _set up_ to store those cloud berries at the humidity they demand, lest they burst into little balls of mold out of pure spite? Will they stop singing the Skeksis' praises if he livens up their favorite regional thread soup with just a little Sifan pepper?

It's a quiet night. And every time he hears that clack of claw on stone, he comes just a tad bit closer to setting it apart from all the others in the castle.

“Mysterious stranger,” he says warmly, not bothering to extract his head from the cupboards.

“Nameless rouge raiding our kitchens,” SkekEkt greets in return. “Are you terribly busy?”

“Not particularly. Why? Something on your mind?”

“Oh, nothing too pressing. Just a small curiosity.”

“Ask away.”

“Do you ever plan on ravishing me?”

SkekAyuk just about concusses himself on the shelf. When it comes to safety in the kitchen, skekEkt is becoming an occupational hazard.

“ _Pardon?”_

SkekEkt is dressed in a pale blue colored robe that's purely theoretical – the kind the Skeksis dress in when they're acknowledging that Thra doesn't enjoy meeting its benefactors with their genitals hanging out, but feeling particularly contrite about it. He's also leaning over the counter and smiling like a starving platodile. SkekAyuk feels just a little outmatched.

“Well, you can hardly blame me for asking. After all, I stopped playing hard to get _ages_ ago.”

“...Did you?”

“The cracklecherry stems? Remember?”

“I remember,” says skekAyuk, sounding dazed.

“Soooo...what, pray tell, is holding you back?” It's playful, but there's a note of a genuine question there that pricks skekAyuk's conscience with guilty little dewclaws. The last thing he wants hanging on it is knowing he's made skekEkt feel anything less than desirable.

Well, no more of that. He unfastens his apron strings, sets the whole thing over the nearest rack, and with a calmness born out of the sheer zen it's taking to avoid pulling skekEkt down on the floor...leans agreeably over the counter to meet him. And he tells him the truth.

“Because I'm afraid the second I do everything I've ever wanted to you, the novelty will be gone, and you'll have no more reason to keep me around. There's a castle full of other Skeksis to choose from, but we've only ever touched beaks and I find myself wanting to break the legs of anyone who ogles you. If we do this, I'm never, _ever_ going to want to share you. I'd exile myself if I had to.”

It's skekEkt's turn to look lost.

“...Do you really think so little of me? That I'd do that to you?”

“No. But if there's a way to lose you, I guarantee you I've thought long and hard about it. We're banking on living for eternity. And I'm not going to make you promise I'm always going to be the only one for you, but you're always going to be the only one for me.”

SkekEkt stares, blue eyes wide and completely unreadable. SkekAyuk feels his bluntness deteriorate in the face of his uncertainty over whether skekEkt's about to kiss him or smack him.

“Er...right. So that's--”

He's cut off as skekEkt takes him by the talon and leads him, silently, out of the kitchen. Up the staircase. Towards his bedroom.

It's a small mercy no fires are burning, because he never looks back.

***

“So then,” skekEkt says afterwards, breathless and soft. “Still want to keep me?”

SkekAyuk's talons roam directionless, trackless pathways along his arms, thighs, and if it were ever less than set in stone that skekAyuk can't, will never be able to touch enough of him, such ambiguities are a thing of the bygone past. In answer, he presses his beak tight to skekEkt's, trails the waning moon of it up skekEkt's crescent, across his cheek and down his neck, until he's mouthing softly at the marks he's already made.

“Mine,” he declares. Promises. “ _Mine._ ”

SkekEkt shivers, and the talons that have been resting lightly against score marks all their own dig in once more.

“ _Yours._ ”

***

SkekAyuk can't for the life of him say how he managed to get everyone's breakfast on the table the next day, or even what he made. He goes through the motions, mind drifting back to skekEkt. He's sure the other Skeksis will notice, too oversexed not to, but they eat his offering ravenously and never say a word.

(The Podlings are a different story. Out of the corner of his eye, SkekAyuk swears he sees currency exchange hands.)

SkekEkt drinks groundberry tea and fiddles with his hair, hiding the places along his neck where skekAyuk has nipped his feathers loose.

As skekAyuk eats without tasting, nods along with something skekLach is saying, he wishes nothing more than to spend the rest of the morning kissing them.

***

SkekOk's philosophy, only half joking, maintains that “As Skeksis, we cannot trust ourselves with anything pleasurable. If it were feasible to eat ourselves to death every night, we would.”

But skekAyuk, who wasn't doubting the truth of it before, becomes a firm believer. Once that initial dam breaks, he and skekEkt are physically incapable of keeping their hands off one another.

It goes without saying that they're back and forth between each other's rooms, drowning in each other multiple times a night, again in the morning, and when they can sneak away, back again for the occasional afternoon. They pull each other into quiet nooks, unused rooms, the cellars beneath skekAyuk's kitchens. Over balconies, in empty carriages, on long walks outside the castle where the dirt is soft and they can be as loud as they please. In skekEkt's sewing chair. On one memorable occasion, drunk on their own boldness, in the Emperor's throne.

(The question of whether the other Skeksis know comes to an abrupt and unceremonious end. “You reek of each other,” skekUng informs them over lunch one day.)

SkekAyuk wonders if this really _is_ in their nature as Skeksis, if the Gelfling ever get tired of this. Surely even the _Podlings_ must hit a wall at some point. That the Skeksis don't go unfed is the result of meals made ahead at the cost of his professional pride and the help of the very amused Podling staff, whom skekAyuk has always compensated generously, and never moreso than now.

“You've ruined me,” skekEkt laments one night, hand thrown over his brow, dripping with emotion. SkekAyuk chortles.

“I've ruined _you?_ ”

“Yes, yes you have. I used to be productive. I made beautiful things. Then your little rogues came into my life and now I'm useless for all practical purposes!”

SkekAyuk pulls him onto his chest. “I like your hair when it's a mess...”

SkekEkt squawks indignantly. “You do no such thing! You take that back right now!”  
  


SkekAyuk nibbles the place where his neck meets his jaw. “Beautiful...” Again and again, until skekEkt is pliant in his arms. All the fight drained out of him, he never notices skekAyuk's hand slipping beneath his tail.

How no one hears him keening through the walls is a mystery for the ages, or perhaps just a tribute to UrSkek construction.

“ _You manipulative fiend,”_ he grouses halfheartedly, not displeased enough to avoid moving his hips with the Gourmand's hand. SkekAyuk laughs and laughs, because what reason has he to care how time runs away?

SkekEkt is his.

Astoundingly, sublimely _his._

***

“Do you think we're being obnoxious about this?” skekEkt asks one late afternoon.

“What do you mean?” asks skekAyuk, raising his head from the feathers of skekEkt's neck, which he's spent the last fifteen minutes or so contentedly preening.

“Well, you know how Gelfling get when they've just taken up with each other, don't you? All doe eyes and disgusting cooing and touching each other, no one wanting to be around them?”

“Oh, I wouldn't worry about _that_. That's just Gelfling for you.”

SkekEkt situates himself so as to be more comfortably curled around skekAyuk, their tails gently overlapping, and sighs with relief. “Oh, thank the heavens. I could never live with myself if we were.”

“Mm,” hums skekAyuk, returning to his neck. “Anyhow, if you don't want us to turn into a pair of sentimental Gelfling, stop being so irresistible. It's all I can do not to _be_ sentimental over you.”

“Perish the thought! You know I'm _ever so drawn_ to your coldness and cruelty.”

“Oh, of course.”

“It would be the end of us. I simply couldn't _bare_ to be with someone who wooed me over with tidbits of cheese and cake. Who takes it upon himself personally to ensure I never became malnourished at work.”

“Cheeky.”

“Who was far too smitten and sweet to throw me down and take me hard.”

“I am going to _bite you._ ”

“Ooh, promise?”

“I swear it.”

SkekEkt draws back, smiling deviously, and even as he rubs their beaks with the utmost ginger, skekAyuk has a inkling of what's coming...

“ _Then catch me._ ”

SkekAyuk grins. SkekEkt runs.

There are no Gelfling about today, no reason to tolerate robes, no reason not to be the creatures they were when the Crystal cracked, and so they sprint on all sixes, out of the side room and down the west hallway. SkekEkt's strides are long, skekAyuk's distinctly less so, but the sight of the Ornamentalist's bare hindquarters are a powerful incentive. When he succeeds in cornering him by the staircase, skekEkt howls mournfully, feathers rippling in faux defensiveness.

SkekAyuk purrs. “Got you, my delectable little crawlies dumpling...”

SkekEkt gives a most pitiful wail. “ _Mercy!_ ”

“Not a chance.”

He's mere moments from pouncing when skekEkt half jumps, half clambers straight over him, his retreating tail and victorious shrieking warming skekAyuk's heart in a way that nothing else in his life has touched.

The library doors are wide open, and skekOk has no patience for boisterous roughhousing in his library, which is all the more reason to duck in. The vast walls and high ceilings echo every laughter, every growl, and suddenly, the shouts of skekAyuk slipping on the thin carpets near the fireplace.

He's on his back staring up at the UrSkek paintings – orange clouds, pearlescent spires growing out of deserts, and strange, alien horizon lines – when skekEkt appears in his field of vision, all concern.

“Oh, my poor darling! Are you all--”

SkekAyuk, poor rug navigator though he may be, is no loser. He tugs skekEkt down, mouthing at his neck until he squeals and howls and _screams_ , the two of them rolling over and over in a laughing tangle of hair and fur and feathers--

“Dear Thra! Have you no shame? No respect for ancient tomes?”

The two look up in unison, up to the second floor, and meet the thoroughly disapproving eyes of skekOk peering over the railing – not hard at work, it seems, but sharing a cup of tea with skekLach, who nods in agreement.

SkekAyuk straightens the carpet, but skekEkt just smooths his feathers and straightens with unaffected dignity. “Don't you tut down your beak at me! I know what you've done in this library.”

“And I'd rather you did any of those things! Your saccharine fluffing and preening is causing my scrolls to peel!”

They take their leave, but not before the sound of skekLach's voice reaches them, a parody of discreetness--

“I give it a trine. They're going to end up hating each other and it's going to be funny.”

***

At first glance, it may be said that there are no Skeksis in the castle less likely to indulge in nature walks than the Gourmand and the Ornamentalist. But the streams and rivers that capillary out from the castle like trickles of spilled wine are lovely and clear, their banks plush underfoot. They've been known to take skekSa away for unum at a time, skekMal for weeks, and skekAyuk for the more than occasional afternoon. One day, skekEkt joins him.

“I enjoy it out here,” he explains. “Gets me away from the heat of the kitchens. And there's never any shortage of things to pluck and forage.”

“I can imagine,” says skekEkt, who has warmed to walking with his robes tied up so as to dip his feet in the shallows and only complained about the mud thrice.

Breezes drifting in from over the sea disturb the long grasses in the kindest, gentlest of ways, and set the water rippling like a Fizzgig purring in the sun. Before they've reached the place where the river curves and takes them out of sight of the castle, before they've embarked on the return trip, they've pulled countless whiteberries from their vines, bursting with sweet juice. They've flipped rocks, looking for the darters that make such excellent stew. SkekEkt preens when he correctly ascertains, based on just a handful of sniffs, that the tiny red things growing over the water are poisonous.

But it's near the hanging orchard that skekAyuk spies the tell-tale stream of bubbles that signals the greatest prize the river has to offer.

“Just watch!” he says giddly, rolling up his sleeves and readying his talons. “You'll like this.”

A tremendous splash of water later, he's standing straight with an ecstatic shout, gripping something long and black and shining iridescent as it flails in the sunlight. SkekEkt leaps back with alarm.

“Good heavens, is that a _snake?_ ”

“A riverbottom nightmare!” skekAyuk cries, the picture of jubilation. “Not lethal, but horrendously painful. Absolutely delicious roasted over coals, but I myself prefer them raw.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes. They're active all winter long, and they survive by packing on as much fat as they can. Gives the meat a deep, full flavor that you don't get with other types of snake.” He smirks, all mischief. “Want to try it?”

“Tonight?”

“No, here. Right now.”

SkekEkt toys with the edge of his sleeve, even as his eyes light up with a certain kind of hunger that's more than mere hunger. “The Gelfling will throw a fuss if they catch us eating live meat.”

“No one will see, promise! Quickly!”

“Oh, alright, but I'm not taking it all for myself. You have some too!”

“You have this one. I can easily get more.”

“I'm not eating any snake if you've got none!”

“Fine, fine, we'll share it, but you get the head.”

“Deal.”

He dashes the skull against the hardest part of the ground, just enough to stun it. Its heart is still beating beneath his knuckles as he lifts it so that skekEkt can pull the limp, triangular skull in between his teeth, just as skekAyuk is biting down on the thick tail end. In near unison, their jaws break bone, the sound of it as matter-of-fact as it is tell-tale...sharp little crunches, thin snaps. The meat is as skekAyuk promised, strong and sweet, tasting exactly like the river. He watches as skekEkt's expression changes from one of hungry caution to surprise to pure, unmitigated delight.

They have to work at it, fighting it and pulling back, and the sinew stretches between them like candied rope. And the thought occurs, terrible and wonderful, if any _Gelfling were to see them just now..._

It breaks, and they chew away in appreciative silence save for their mutual crunching. The blood is still flowing as they swallow, heads thrown back.

“ _Oh..._ ” sighs skekEkt, looking at him with eyes dreamy and soft, heady with flavor and afternoon sunlight and the shared enormity of what they've done...and perhaps something else that skekMal could speak more to. On the end of his beak, vivid as sunlight against his pale makeup, is a smear of brightest red.

SkekAyuk has never loved him more.

“Agreed.”

***

“Well, Scientist? How goes the Ornamentalist's condition?”

SkekTek, tote of intimidating medical devices at his side, ceases his weary trundle through the court room to favor them all with a withering look.

“Vexatious, irascible, and need it be said? Deafening.” He gives a rough snort, no doubt eager to be back in his lab and washing his hands. “The Ornamentalist will be fine.”

“ _Oh, thank Thra_ ,” breathes skekAyuk.

A relieved clamor ripples over the room. The Emperor's shoulders lower just a fraction, though they all know from experience that they will not relax entirely until the Ornamentalist is out of bed and back to his usual vivacious self.

“There, you see? Immortality, unfortunately, is no guarantee against simple ailments. Even Mother Aughra suffers them on occasion. Merely a bothersome inconvenience, at worst.”

The Skeksis, secure in this little compromise and the knowledge that they're not about to be decimated by a plague today, nod their agreements all around. SkekAyuk, however, puts up a talon.

“Is there anything that can be done? To make him more comfortable in the meantime?”

“Shy of the entire court donning black and forming a vigil outside of the Ornamentalist's bed chambers?” SkekAyuk blinks. “Rest, hydration, and proper feeding.”

“My Emperor, I--”

“You are dismissed, Gourmand.”

“Thank you, sire, thank you!”

Fortunately, although this may be skekEkt's first cold, it's hardly the first to rear its head among the Skeksis. SkekOk had the dubious honor of contracting a summer bug not long after they all sprung into existence, and last winter, the Emperor's entire inner circle was laid low by something they assumed the Podlings had brought in, leaving skekAyuk with some fair degree of experience starving fevers. Wasting no time, he rolls up his sleeves and starts a broth simmering – and knows he's on the right track when the smell reaches the outermost extremities of the castle and inquisitive heads start peering around the corner.

“Are you making what I think you're making?” wheedles skekLach.

SkekAyuk puts out a pan of roasted excess bits – too rich for delicate, bedridden stomachs – and closes the door.

The Brothers are sinking low when he makes his way up to the Ornamentalist's chambers, and he can hear his lover long before he sees him – the rapid bouts of high pitched sneezing, the sound of a nose being blown, the pitiful groans that follow.

“Enter,” skekEkt answers his knock in a tone of utmost repine.

SkekAyuk does, laden tray in hand. “Evening, my dear. Feeling any better?”

“I crave death,” replies skekEkt flatly. “Don't even look at me, by the way, I'm hideous.”

“Nonsense. Your beauty's never tarnished.” SkekEkt -- plumped on a mountain of cushions, hair a matted mess around his face, face pale and eyes red and feathers in utmost disarray – sniffles wetly. “I brought you something.”

“That's very sweet of you, but I couldn't eat a thing. It'll fly out of me one way or another.”

“Just give it a try. Very gentle and warming on your stomach, and it'll help you sleep. If you can't manage it, that's perfectly fine.”

“Oh, alright then. Bring it here.”

SkekEkt lifts the cover from the bowl and finds his face wreathed in a small curtain of fragrant steam. SkekAyuk takes a seat at the bedside and, with no small amount of satisfaction, watches as just an inkling of eagerness lights up his lover's watery eyes. SkekEkt fastens his spoon to his talon, dips a cautious taste of the shimmering golden broth, sips it...and gives a faint, but deeply gratified groan before going back for another.

SkekAyuk smiles. “Extra cotus root, no eggs.”

“Mmm,” skekEkt moans around a mouthful, and skekAyuk leaves him to his steady slurping it until his spoon hits one of the six drifting bodies. “Dumplings?”

“As light as I can possibly make them.”

SkekEkt scoops one up, tastes it. His expression melts into delight. “...Grottan sniffer?”

“Just the soft meats.”

“You're an absolute wonder...”

SkekAyuk watches him finish off the bowl in silence, save for the clatter of spoon on porcelain and the soft, steady slurping. The urge to gather skekEkt in his arms and hold him is strong, as it always is when the Ornamentalist is in distress for any reason, but skekEkt has been adamant that he not pass his illness along to anyone who matters. Much to skekAyuk's surprise, he finishes the bowl down to the last dregs, and sips his water daintily as skekAyuk relocates the tray to the floor.

“I do believe I needed that.”

“SkekOk had a whole list of odd culinary demands when he took sick. I'd much rather cook for you.”

“Trust me, I'd happily shift this off to skekOk if I could.” He settles down deeper into his pillow and cushion nest, looking mournfully up at skekAyuk. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too.”

“You've spoiled me. Sleeping's a terrible chore when it's not with you.”

“Soon. SkekTek says your fever's broken.”

“Ugh, skekTek...did he tell you all the things he extracted from me?”

“I'll ask him.”

“In the middle of dinner.”

“In the middle of dinner.” SkekEkt's unbrushed hair is falling in his face, skekAyuk pushes it back, and since his hand is there, continues stroking skekEkt's face. The Ornamentalist sighs a long sigh.

“...Have I missed anything scandalous around the castle?”

“Scandalous? Hm. Let's see...nothing terribly scandalous, I don't think. A fight almost broke out, but it was nothing interesting, just skekSil and his napping corner again.”

“Mmm...speaking of napping spots, don't let anyone take my precious window seat, alright?”

“I promise.”

“ _You_ can use it if you like. But I don't want anyone else's awful feathers making a stench of it.”

“You have my word.” SkekEkt's eyelids are toying with the notion of closing, and it's all skekAyuk wanted for him, a full stomach and a natural sleep without the urging of skekTek's concoctions. “Get some rest. It'll do you a world of good. ”

“Stay,” skekEkt sighs, leaning into his touch. “Until I fall asleep...”

...The other Skeksis are unlikely to wither and die if their dinner is on the table a little later.

“Always.”

***

Aughra pays them a surprise visit, up from the Orrery. They gather around and chastise her for not visiting sooner.

“Away with you, great saps, off of me!” About the time skekGra lifts her bodily in a tight hug is when the staff starts swinging – for their purposes, as inevitable and familiar as a clap on the back. “Like a gaggle of newborn Fizzgigs, you are.”

She embraces skekTek warmly, asks after skekLi's cracked beak, commences her ritual griping with skekOk over the book he borrowed from her and has yet to return. Even skekEkt kneels to kiss her cheeks with only minimal grumbling for his trouble. “Yes, yes, Ornamentalist, I know what you're playing at and I see that new collar of yours. Very pretty.”

She makes her way to skekSo, and just as always, they squeeze one another's hands. “Mother Aughra. It has been far too long.”

“Yes. So I've heard.” She pats him on the talon. “Books and stargazing are no substitute for your stories. Close, but no.”

She wants to see her beloved Crystal first and foremost. (“All accounted for. Crack doesn't seem to be giving it any trouble. May heal on its own, given enough gentling.”) That assured, they all retire to her favorite sitting room, the one with the sloped ceiling and deep, cup shaped cushions. She has stories from Thra, things she's seen and touched and learned through the Orrery they've given her; little by little, plans for the day she inevitably turns her eyes to the stars. She never says as much, but they know what it means that she plans at all. There would be no discussion of it if she didn't think the Crystal would be safe in their care.

When skekAyuk brings her around a tray of her favorite floral cider and little iced cakes, she waves him down and closer. “Found something to get you out of the kitchens, have you?” SkekAyuk blinks.

“How did you...”

As she helps herself to a cake, she pats him on the cheek.

“He's a good one. So are you. Look after each other.”

He never does discover how she knew.

***

The weeks will turn into unum, stretching longer and longer and colder and darker, then warmer once again. SkekAyuk, who claims to never serve the same menu twice, will forever remember what he's making – roundroot stew with the necks of Stonewood raised greegrass birds – the first time skekEkt walks into his kitchen dripping mud and rainwater all over his kitchen, looks him in the eyes, and tells him he loves him. He'll remember the first breakfast in bed he ever surprised skekEkt with (hot tea, porridge with poache Qut eggs) and the first meal skekEkt attempted to cook for him (charred black with a side of dried brown.)

He really, truly doesn't care to remember their first major argument beyond the fact that it involved skekEkt imbibing one goblet too many and hanging a little too long on skekMal's arm, but he remembers what they made together as they made up – tannes and sauteed kidney, extra raw tannes, finely minced.

(The only thing that skekEkt despised more than finely mincing things was raw tannes. “I'd mince them every day if it meant that you would stay with me. I'd rub them into my skin.”)

And suddenly, just like that, they've been together an entire trine.

***

There's no point in going to the other Skeksis for advice, that's for sure...none of them can keep a secret to save their lives. He eventually comes around to asking his Podling kitchen staff how they celebrate relationship milestones, and is rewarded with four votes for “wild, drunken party”, one for “eat the mud you exchanged vows in”, and one rambling, incredibly ribald story featuring the Podling who washes the dishes, the dishwashing Podling's three partners, and a blunt rod wrapped in nurloc leather.

It's the little old Podling who assists him in baking puts the matter to bed. “Easy. Whatever he like.”

But the problem is, he knows exactly what skekEkt likes – rare meat, exotic and beautiful fabrics, and joy at the expense of others. The first he gives him all the time, the second skekEkt is more than capable of procuring for himself. Going straight to the source is no help either.

“So...hypothetically speaking, crawlie dumpling. What's your favorite thing in the world?”

“You.”

“More attainable. Something someone could go out and find for you.”

“Ooh...Sea silk. Aughra insists it's a legend, but I think she just doesn't want me to go looking for it.”

“What would your last meal be?”

“Anything you make.”

The problem all falls into place once he breaks it down into manageable pieces. SkekEkt likes rare meat in any capacity, but he _adores_ Nebrie. Find the cream of the Nebrie crop, find something special to make for skekEkt. Who knows Nebrie best, apart from the Podlings who refuse to let any harm come to them? The frightening looking Gelfling with the missing fingers who brings him Nebrie, of course.

It's simple. Comfortingly so.

“You want the best, Gourmand, then there's no question about it, you want young pearl Nebrie from the Sami thicket. The only problem is, well...”

“Yes?”

“The Podling think they're gifts from Thra. They protect 'em with their lives and they've all got names, but if you're willing to grease the palms of the right Podling...”

“I am. Make no mistake.”

The Skeksis lead lives of plenty, but not unlimited wealth, and skekAyuk prepares that creature in his mind at least four times before he fully wakes up in the morning, and three before he falls asleep at night. How to butcher it (to be determined) how to keep the Podlings from knowing about it (to be determined), what to use as a marinade (salt, pepper, sugar, dash of black leek from the Sami thicket, milk of Sami mushroom. The juice of a single ripe peachberry.)

“You're going to hate what I got for you,” skekEkt sighs contentedly into his neck as they soak in the bath together. “It's awful.”

“That bad, eh?”

“The very worst. It will make you wish you'd chosen skekNa over me.”

“Hmm, point. I could have been waking up to skekNa's face each morning, cooking for skekNa, and each night, having skekNa piss in my mouth...”

“The heart demands what the heart demands. If the heart demands skekNa's piss...”

SkekAyuk bites his shoulder playfully until his laughter adds a fresh balm of warmth to the walls.

“You still haven't told me what it is you want. And the window to do so is closing.”

“What I want is for you not to worry yourself. Shy of a dead snoutling rotting in the sun, I swear I'll like whatever you surprise me with.”

“Curses,” says skekAyuk, feeling significantly better. “Spoiled the surprise.”

“Wash my back?”

SkekAyuk, just for a little while, lays aside his debate over whether to build a secret roasting pit.

***

Just one, delivered in the dead of night. A young female, fatter and more tender than the males by an infinity, if not as succulent as the little ones...which, in this case, skekAyuk's source declared not to be found anywhere on the face of Thra. He'd checked.

He waits around the back of the castle at the appointed time, shifting on his talons, watching the moons until he hears the distinct, uneven fall of Landstrider hooves off in the dark. His source, as per their plans, meets him halfway up the ramp, parcel cool, but unfrozen.

“Excellent! Marvelous! Give it here, let's see it.”

“Very fresh, lord Gourmand,” says the Gelfling. “Killed only this afternoon. The Podlings think you'll be very pleased indeed.”

“Well, yes, I should say I'm already...”

“...Something wrong, my lord?”

It's... _smaller_ than he expected.

Fat, certainly, but not fat in the way that young Nebrie are, soft and gummy and giving.

It's actually quite... _gangly._

“Gelfling. I'm going to need you to light your lantern.”

***

A Landstrider calf.

A _Landstrider calf._

_A thrice forsaken Landstrider calf._

SkekAyuk pictures the Podlings, gathered around their down-payment and laughing their awful, tuberous little heads off. If they could have gotten away with sending him a dead Fizzgig, he strongly suspects they would have.

He somehow avoids striking the Gelfling, although their business partnership comes to a hissing, shrieking, inelegant end. SkekAyuk carries around, kicking the stones and shouting curses in the night until several windows on the lower end of the castle begin to light up, at which point he settles for sitting on the ramp, head in hands.

_'Look at you. Oh, it's not skekEkt you have to worry about. SkekEkt will be fine with whatever you make, and isn't that so much worse? The best thing that ever happened to you, or will happen to you. You may live a thousand lifetimes together, and this will always be your first trine together, and it will never come again. And you, dear lord Gourmand, will mark it with a Landstrider calf that costs more than three generations of Podlings will ever see in their lifetimes.'_

He sits there, indulging in these kind of thoughts until even to his aching pride, they begin to feel unproductive and excessive. Then, and only then, does skekAyuk stand and sigh.

A deep, deep, deep sigh.

He collects the meat from where it's been hurled bodily at the fleeing Gelfling, and with as much dignity as he can salvage, takes it inside to wash it off.

***

“I am the Gourmand,” he tells the calf. Tells himself and perhaps, his kitchen as a whole. And then, rolling up his sleeves, he gets to work.

Scrap the plans for the Sog themed marinade, which doesn't make much sense now and will only make the meat gamier. Landstrider calves are born to run, less sweeter and tender than their elders, the meat of which is tinged with yellow fat, but their backstraps cook up well enough and he's got plenty of sogbird grease to make up the difference. Sear it in the grease to a caramel brown color, then rub it well with a mixture of Plains mustard and sweet Vlea'zelle's tooth and a handful of other fresh herbs. Let that sit beneath the stones, in the cold.

_Marrow._ Yes, of course, there's good marrow on a Landstrider and he can certainly do something with that. Extract the bones, pick through them for the choicest, cut up the rest of the carcass, and set it aside for stews and stock. Grab the softened butter, summon whatever courage hasn't been summoned yet, and get to making the layers and layers of dough.

Enter a mild fugue state. Come back down to Thra just in time for the marinade to have penetrated and the dough to have sat. Wrap those backstraps like a mother Podling wraps her infant, brush of butter, then pop them into the oven like a mother Podling does not.

Thank Thra for his own tendency to do everything to excess, even when the meat is meant to be the star of the show. Check the sprouting buds, give them a little water just to be safe. Make the vinaigrette so it has time to rest. Feed the solobe a last meal of grain well-saturated with fortified wine, so that the taste carries over at the moment of truth. Gather the things necessary for a pan sauce.

Pick out an appropriate wine or three.

(SkekEkt's no wine connoisseur, but he likes to think he is, so plan to that angle.)

Stop. Breathe. Smell the rich wreathe of cooking scents and consider that maybe, this all might work out after all.

At some point, remember to bathe.

***

On some fundamental level, skekAyuk is aware of what the Skeksis in the dining hall will be eating tonight. He knows that they'll be happy with it, will probably nod off at the table immediately after, and have no complaints, and thus no reason to bother him.

SkekEkt's robes are freshly made, obviously. Dusty rose, long red feathers about the throat, just a little less flashy than his own, and all of it clinging just loosely enough to carry the illusion that neither of them know what they'll be doing after all of this. He smells like a dream, the kind of dream that carries out a plot before it gets really dirty, and before skekAyuk is quite done looking at him, they've gravitated straight into each other's arms, rubbing beak to polished beak.

“You like it?”

“You're a _vision_. You're absolutely stunning.”

“Well, I would hope so! If _you're_ going to be a gorgeous distraction, the least I can do is match you step for step. Alright. Now close your eyes...”

SkekAyuk does, and when he opens them...

“Oh, _skekEkt._ ”

For skekEkt has produced a deep wooden box, red as velvet and smooth as glass, delicately carved with flowers, talons, the three moons...and in the middle of it all, the word for 'recipes' inscribed in the Skeksis tongue, that one thing of so few things that remains unquestionably their own. When skekAyuk opens it, he's swept up in the scent of new leather and the silk lining the interior. Lifting out the binder, he runs the pads of his fingers over the gleaming surface.

“You know that _I_ don't mind your recipes lying all around,” skekEkt clarifies quickly. “I just think it's a shame they never gave you a nicer one. Anyhow, if skekOk's to be believed, that's _the_ ideal wood for preserving important documents. I know you're quite capable of going out and getting your own, but I just thought--”

SkekAyuk's arms are already around him.

“I love it. I love _you_. Thank you.”

He insists on carrying the recipe box with him – not keen to risk it falling into Skeksis hands, but also just because he wants to – into the room off the kitchen, where the soft, low light beckons and the scent on the air is rich and telling and unobscured by the incense skekSo annoyingly insists on burning at feasts. SkekEkt's hands fly up to cover his beak.

“Oh, _darling_...”  
  


“Happy trine, love. First course.”

“When you said you were going to cook for us, I was imagining the same thing everyone else downstairs was eating, but plated more nicely. But we're doing this in _courses?_ ”

“You know I'd never subject you to the same thing eveyrone else is having.”

“Is that solobe? How did you even _find_ a solobe?”

“Sit down! See for yourself!”

They do, and skekAyuk serves the first course in question – solobe soup, alive less than an hour ago, cooked just so that the gel is melting into the hot broth and served with a slice of blood-pink citrus. A droplet to be picked up with each spoonful of soup.

“You even saved the little head,” skekEkt croons, poking at the little thing with its tiny beak and shuttered eyes, resting on a bed of greens. SkekAyuk smiles.

“I know you found them charming. Looking back, I suppose I should have gotten you something practical or tangible, something we can look back on a few thousand trine from now, supposing we make this work--”

“I have plenty of tangible things,” skekEkt interrupts. “If I needed more, I could easily go out get them. What I want is to eat this soup you slaved over.”

“Point taken.”

From the soup, they move onto the flower buds in vinaigrette, served with dollops of swothel cheese; from there, balls of spiced offal served very nearly raw, because Skeksis eat in vast quantities and need to round out delicate culinary experiences with red meat. Chilled Vapran white to clear their palettes.

And then at long last, the centerpiece.

“Young Landstrider in a plains marinade, slow braised, swaddled in its own marrow and wrapped in layered pastry. With a Dousan red wine sauce.”

There is no higher seal of approval than the shriek skekEkt gives, delight clear and transparent and beautiful.

“You made the pastry?”

“I should say I did! Shortcuts taste like snoutling skreesh.”

“I love you. Never change.”

SkekAyuk's feathers fluff about his throat, because he's yet to tire of hearing it.

His earlier anxieties have softened, the possibility of a last minute failure less grim – he's certain that skekEkt would find a way to have them both laughing about it – but there's nonetheless a feeling of trepidation as he carves up the dish. It's a complicated one, full of things that can go wrong, but mercifully. The meat is tender enough to eat sans teeth, the pastry buttery and flaky, the sauce embracing everything in a deeply flavorful hug. SkekEkt whimpers around each bite.

“ _Sublime_.”

SkekAyuk can't remember the last time he felt so accomplished.

As the lights burn ever lower, they scrape their dessert dishes, and lick the last salvagings of honeyed custard with crumbling biscuit. Somewhere, from far across the castle, the sounds of the other Skeksis sloshing along to one of skekLi's songs reaches them, and rather than serving as an irritation, they laugh a wine warmed laugh at it. SkekEkt, slipping off his finger utensils, takes skekAyuk's hand.

“I'm so very glad you're mine,” he says. “Do you know that? And I don't care what anyone says, or anyone thinks...I've loved deciding what I am. I've loved being yours.”

SkekAyuk reflects, just briefly, on the way they were before. It's the same distant haze it always has been, but he finds if he truly digs his talons into it, he can get a sense for what it felt like – or rather, didn't feel like. He knows that AyukAmaj lived off of what light could be asborbed from the Crystal, and was content with this...AyukAmaj never found joy in chopping Grottan bulbs, or the sound of a cauldron simmering, or even the feel of a riverbank against bare, corporeal feet. AyukAmaj did not love EktUtt the Designer. It's such an ugly thought that he shunts it away, hooks his talons around skekEkt's and pulls them in close enough to press his beak to the knuckles. “SkekEkt. My skekEkt. Believe me when I tell you that you are my best, my favorite thing. I'm going to love you for a thousand ages.”

The Ornamentalist giggles, the flush on his beak not entirely to be blamed on the wine. “So dramatic, my dear! You know that eventually, this planet will be swallowed up by its own suns. What will we do then?”

“Jump to another planet, of course. I'll wrap the things that live there in pastry. You can get me a new binder for recipes. I should be just about due for one by then.”

SkekEkt leans in until they're forehead to forehead. And that too, skekAyuk will never tire of.

“Consider it a date.”

***

_Someday, on the night of their 500 th trine, the Skeksis will gather in secret for a celebratory meal of young nebrie, fed exclusively on fruit and tender greens and bolted to the center of the table. They'll peel cuts of its still living flesh, just barely cooked through by ladles of boiling aromatic broth, and extract choice bits of offal. When the last drop of wine is drunk, they'll split the skull and eat the brains with cream._

_But tonight, skekAyuk is very far away from all of this._

_Tonight, skekAyuk is younger than he'll ever be again, full of wine and distant music, and skekEkt is looking at him alone._

_And his eyes are full of candlelight._


End file.
